After Mexico, Nicaragua is the biggest country in Central America. Most of the country is part of the humid tropics. Nicaragua is largely an agriculturally structured country. The situation for the population, in particular small farmers, is critical. Their situation is worsened by minimal proceeds from agricultural products, which results in low incomes; reduced soil fertility; and a combination of weak infrastructure and poor organisation among small farmers.

The destruction of the rain forest has hugely increased over the past decades. The principal reason for this is the rapid expansion of agriculturally cultivated land. The destruction of large areas of forest has already gravely upset the ecological balance. This has resulted in devastating natural catastrophes. Agroforestry combines agricultural and forestry farming methods. This concept is being developed to help stem extensive land cultivation, plus provide a real chance for reforestation and, therefore, the continuity of the rain forest.

A multi-levelled canopy is created through the use of different environmentally appropriate ‘nurse plants’, such as bananas, cocoa, maize, or beans. This protects the ground from eroding, drying out, and losing nutrients. Productive capacity and productivity rise – as well as the farmers’ incomes. On top of this, the soil’s productive capacity is secured for the long-term. The growing expansion of cultivated land and associated deforestation of the rain forest can also be effectively stemmed in this way.

In 1990, the private development project, CACAONICA, grew out of the agroforestry approach. Since it was started RITTER SPORT has supported it with over 2.5 million euros. “Cocoa is a main component of our products, which we obtain from Third World countries. We, therefore, have a particular responsibility in respect to these countries. It’s clear that the protection of the tropical forests requires the involvement of industrialised countries. We want to contribute to this.” (Alfred Ritter & Marli Hoppe-Ritter).

The project is located in Waslala. With approx. 1,800 cocoa farmers, “Municipio de Waslala“ is the most important cocoa farming region in Nicaragua. A large part of funds goes into advising and training farmers in matters of organisation and management strategies. This includes farming methods as well as issues of quality and marketing. Since the start of the project more than 1,000 small farmers have been involved.

CACAONICA has set itself the goal of promoting, above all, the cultivation, production, and marketing of organic cocoa. In Waslala, a cooperative was created that, since the middle of 2000, has taken over the central processing (in its own plant) and sale of raw cocoa produced in the project. The raw cocoa from this area exhibits outstanding qualitative and flavour properties and is sold in Central America and Europe. RITTER SPORT buys organically produced cocoa, under fair trade conditions, from the project area. It uses this in its own production. Detailed information on our Cacaonica Project is available on our internet site. It can be found in the section, COMPANY, under the following link: ecology#/en_GB/company/ecology/.